What's up with Mikey?
by Turtlefanforlife1982
Summary: there has got to be a reason Mikey is so hyper all the time, his family try to figure some things out. Leonardo makes a discovery about his youngest brother... I am aware Mikey has ADD this story is just something fun to think about.


**A/N: got this idea while reading a fic about Mikey being bored out of his mind and decided to bug the heck out of Raph.**

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"MIKEY! WHEN I GET AHOLD OF YOU!" Mikey gulped as he heard his hotheaded older brother yell for him, he got up off the couch as he heard Raphael's bedroom door open and slam shut. He ran to the dojo and tried to hide behind the large tree growing in the center. Splinter turned from meditating and said to his son "what did you do Michelangelo?"

Mikey looked over at his father and said softly "I may or may not have put fake cockroaches in Raph's bed."

"in that case, if your brother finds you, I know nothing of what he does to you."

Mikey felt the blood drain from his face, his father was going to let Raphael pumble him.

Raphael entered the dojo, at first he rushed in but he saw his father and slowed his stride, Splinter didn't open his eyes but said to Raphael "if the object of your anger is hard for you to find then maybe you should look around the dojo."

Raphael went around the dojo, suddenly there was rustling in the tree, Raph saw his father's ears perked up. Raphael stood under the tree and looked up. At first he didn't see anything then he saw one of the limbs move.

"Mikey! I see you up there! You are horrible at stealth hiding!" Mikey looked straight down and saw his brother's furious glare, "if I come down do you promise not to hurt me?"

"Mikey you put roaches in my bed! why would I forgive you for that!"

"Raphie I was board, and besides they weren't real, I wouldn't be that mean to you."

Raphael looked up at his mischievous youngest brother, looking into those blue eyes Raph couldn't stay mad at him, with a huge sigh he said to him "come on down knuckle head, I wont hurt ya."

Leo and Donnie entered the dojo, they saw Raph looking up and Donatello said "Mikey up there?" "yea, tryin to get him down."

Leonardo stepped forward "I got a few words to say to the little prankster." Donnie walked closer to Raphael and said "yea and I gotta few words to say to him also."

Splinter stood then and said to his children "Michelangelo, come down from there. Boys what seems to be the problem?" Raphael, Leonardo and Donatello stood before their father as Michelangelo stood beside his father.

Every one was silent for a moment then Splinter looked down at his youngest son at his side "Michelangelo, go to your room for now." Michelangelo looked up at his father and said "but I didn't do anything!" Splinter gave him a stern look "go, now my son." Mikey walked out of the dojo and to his room.

Donnie looked up at his father and said "Master Splinter, what if we find him something to do?"

Leo added in "yea right, he plays games and reads comic books. What else could we possibly do to distract the little twerp."

Raphael put his two cents in "well, what if he helps Donnie in the lab?"

Donnie's eyes grew wide, "heck no! He will destroy the lab!"

Leo smiled and said "remember when we were infected with that parasite poison? He kept his attention long enough to help you."

"that's only because he was scared, usually he can't keep his attention for very long."

Splinter added in "what if he helps Raphael with the shellcycle? It would keep him busy, and out of trouble."

Raph scoffed and said "yea right, he can't keep his attention long enough, besides all he is good at is cooking and driving us all insane."

Leo looked at his younger brothers and said honestly "guys we all have hidden talents, we just need to find Mikey's, if we did then it would surprise the shell out of us."

Splinter thought about this, it had surprised him that his son had mastered the art of cooking, what other hidden talents did his son have.

"Leonardo, I am putting you in charge of finding Michelangelo's hidden talent. I want you first to try and see if there's anything as far as Ninjitsu that he may enjoy that he possibly will work with you on."

"Hai Sensie."

the three turtles went about their normal routines, Leonardo went to his little brother's room he found the door wide open, and in the middle of the war zone Mikey called a room was Mikey sitting on his bed.

"Mikey?" Mikey looked over at his brother and said "what did I do Leo? Am I in trouble?"

Smiling at his baby brother and making his way into the room, Leo put an arm around his baby brother as he sat down. "no, your not in trouble. Splinter wanted to speak with the three of us in privet."

"yea, about me right? About what a goof off I am?"

Leo could see the hurt expression on his brother's face "Mikey, no one says that your that bad, look why don't you and I do something together. Like we did when we were kids."

With hopeful eyes Mikey said happily "really? this isn't a trick for Raph to ambush me?" "nope no trick, come on."

The two brothers entered the dojo, Splinter was sitting once more meditating, he was aware of his sons being there but chose to ignore them.

Leo turned to his brother and said "remember you told us about that secret Kata?" "yea?" "do you have any more like that?"

Mikey smiled and said excitedly "oh yea! sure I do!"

Michelangelo did a series of flips and kicks much to Leonardo's amusement, Splinter opened one eye and chuckled at the way his son was making up his own Kata's.

As Splinter watched he realized that Michelangelo had more interest in the martial arts then he thought, the youngest turtle took enough time to invent kata's. Splinter stood up and walked over to Leonardo "my son, I think we have found another talent." looking up at his father he said "how do you mean?"

"do not discourage him if he comes up with a different form of ninjitsu then the rest of you. He sees the world differently then you and your brothers, he has his own fighting style."

Once Michelangelo was done he stood panting before his brother and father "how was that?" Splinter walked up to him "that was very good my son, you show much interest in doing your katas."

looking up at his father he said "yea, I have a hard time learning the ones you teach us, its like my brain does them backwards."

Frowning Leonardo said to the other two in the room "I will be right back." Leo went to Donnie's lab, "hey Donnie I have a question for you."

Donnie put the mutagen he had in his hand down and said "yea what's up?"

"Mikey just admitted to Master Splinter that he has a hard time doing the kata's he shows us because the way his brain processes them. He said that he sees them being done backwards and that's why he has so much trouble."

Donatello frowned and opened his laptop. He typed in learning disabilities, what he got was a wide veriety. but not what he was looking for.

Looking up at his oldest brother he said questioningly "I think Mikey has dyslexia?"

Frowning Leo asked "what is that?"

"it has to do with the way one learns, there are various degrees of it, and it can appear in martial arts. It happens when the teacher is trying to teach the student moves only to have the student do them backwards. It also affects the students ability to know their left from right when doing moves as well."

Just then Splinter came in to the room "Raphael has Michelangelo now, what is it your doing Leonardo?" "I had a theory about something, and Donnie was telling me about Dyslexia."

Splinter motioned for Donatello to speak, "you see, it happens when the student sees the moves but when they go to do it them selves its backwards, they don't know their left from right and it gets turned around. While Leo and I had been talking I typed in Dyslexia in Martail arts and I came up with some articles."

"I thought it only affected reading and writing?" Leo asked

"oh it can, but some is more physical, and that seems to be where Mikey is at. He acts out because he cant learn like the rest of us."

"is that why he acts up all the time? And pulls pranks?" Donnie looked up at them and said "I think so, you see I think Mikey doesn't do it on 100% perpos I think in his mind set if he messes up we will laugh at him like we tend to do to each other when we do mess up."

Splinter chimed in "he has always been more tender hearted then the rest of you, his feelings are easily hurt."

Donnie pointed a finger and his father and said "exactly, its not a bad thing, and it can be worked with."

_In the garage with Raphael..._

Raph watched his little brother fiddle with tools in the tool box, he turned back to the shell cycle then said absently "so what did you and Leo do?" "he let me show him my katas. The ones I made up."

Raph had heard what Donnie had said to Leo before going to the garage and said "huh, ok, uh can you hand me the wrench on your left."

Mikey had the tool box on his left side, but he turned to the right instead, only to see nothing but ground. Raph frowned and said calmly "Mike, your other left buddy."

Mikey ducked his head and turned to the tool box and got the wrench. Raph wasn't trying to embaras his brother he was trying to figure something out.

Raph stood up and said "come here." Mikey got up and slowly made his way to his hotheaded brother, "don't worry Mikey I aint gonna hurt cha." looking around he saw they had limited room and he said "follow me to the shellraiser." once more out in the open Raph said "ok, stand here."

Raph stood next to his brother and said "now put out your right arm, and make a fist." "like a fighting stance?" "yea."

Mikey tried to do as he was told, but he put his left arm out and not his right.

"hmmm... Do what I do." Raph punched the air some what slowly so his brother would catch on, left, right, kick left, kick right. "now you do it." Mikey didn't understand what his older brother was doing but did what he was told to do. Raph noticed that Mikey did once again the opposite of what had been shown. For the first time in his life Raphael knew now why Mikey had so much trouble with katas. Like he had heard Donnie say, Mikey had to be dyslexic.

Mikey looked over at his brother and asked "why are you guys treating me differently? did I do something? is this a punishment?" Raph laughed and said "no Mikey, you didn't do anything wrong. Come on, lets go talk to Splinter."

Raph noticed that Leo, Donnie and Splinter were in Donnie's lab, they all looked up when the two came in.

Splinter walked over to his youngest son and said "my son, when we do training from here on in, I want you and Leonardo to train together privately with me." "what do you mean? are you disappointed in me?"

For the first time since he began training them Splinter saw how fragile Michelangelo's self esteem really was. This would explain why he acted out so much, and got into trouble.

So from that day on Splinter trained Michelangelo separately from the others, but with Leonardo's help, the youngest of the turtles calmed down and began taking his ninjitsu more seriously. It became fun for him, and he still performed some of his old pranks, just not as often. And Splinter also found Michelangelo was indeed intelligent, and had a gift for the martial arts like Leonardo.

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**A/N: this was not what I had in mind for this story, but it is informative either way. I got to thinking as to why Mikey had such a short attention span then I noticed when he fights on TV with his brothers, he does things the opposite of them. So there for I really did do research on Dyslexia, and found that it can have an impact on a martial artist.**

**Review please! :)**


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